An Open Letter to SEN Richard Burr

Here's the text of a letter I just sent to my Republican senator:

"I am extremely concerned about the current game of "chicken" that is currently playing out in Washington over the budget impasse. While cutting expenditures is certainly a part of any responsible solution, so is raising taxes.

Since World War 2, federal expenditures have averaged about 20% of the nation's GDP. Tax revenues have generally averaged a point below that. Under President Bush and the Republican leadership since 2000, expenditures have jumped to about 24% of GDP and revenues have fallen to about 15%. This was, and remains, irresponsible.

Moreover, the Republican mantra that tax cuts for the wealthy stimulate jobs is patently false. There has been a steady shift of wealth from the middle class (including me) to the wealthy (including you) since the Reagan administration. The top 1% now control about 42% of the nation's wealth and, due to breaks like low rates on capital gains, pay less in taxes. Moreover, the rich DO NOT create jobs. That is done by small businesses and mom-and-pop entrepreneurs. Wealthy people are sitting on trillions of dollars in Wall Street investments and are not circulating this money in the economy where it is needed.

The rich are getting a free ride in America and the Republicans are their champions. It is time to change that mantra for the good of the country. Therefore, any responsible solution to the debt problem MUST include tax increases.

Do not drive this country into bankruptcy to protect tax cuts for the rich. It's stupid."

Profound Questions

One of my LinkedIn groups had this interesting question posted this morning: "If you had to do it all over again, would you choose your present career?" I read the responses and was very surprised to see mostly negative comments. So many people were not happy with their careers or with the way their lives had turned out. It gave me something to think about. I'm a pretty happy guy by nature and generally assume that most everybody else is, too. A dangerous assumption, I know, but that's my default setting. So when I bump into evidence that my defaults are faulty, it gets my mind going.

I immediately answered the question with this:

If I had to do it all over again, I'd do the same things, absolutely. I was a naval officer for 22 years and did some neat things with wonderful people in some unbelievable situations. Then I became an artist, a completely different universe, loved it and was very good at it. But the art market has collapsed and the things I need to paint are not the things that sell, so I'm looking for an opportunity to make a living while contributing something positive to the world. It'll come. One thing I've learned is that the best things in my life haven't been the things that I planned for, they've been the unexpected: the career field that I never heard of until I stumbled into it, an assignment I never would have asked for, and the woman who came into my life right when I specifically wasn't looking. Would I do it again? In a heartbeat!

Then I went out to do some mowing. Mowing is a great time to do some thinking. It's a physical activity that doesn't take a lot of brainpower: follow the pattern, make sure to overlap the passes, and that's about it. So I thought about the LinkedIn question and why it is I was able to answer it that way.

Way back when (about 1969), my first job was with a food producer. It was a small shop that was set up to experiment with making sausage biscuits and see if they could do it profitably. I was clueless, just a 16-year-old teenager with no skills hired on as general labor for part of a summer. The older guys, who had all been doing general labor for years, even decades, took me under their wing. They showed me how to work hard and carry my weight. None had been to college and only a few had completed high school. Most of them were black, and for a middle-class white kid who grew up in the segregated south, this was an eye-opener. I learned a lot: that people could be smart even if they're not educated, that the people doing the work generally knew more about how to get the job done than the boss did, and that most people wanted to work hard and be respected for what they could do.

Those lessons were reinforced later when I went to work as a waiter at a Red Lobster. My trainer was an older black woman named Rosa. She was skinny as a rail with a beehive hairdo and more energy than anybody else in the restaurant. Rosa hustled. She was always two steps ahead of the game. Rosa was the best waitress in the place and always made more in tips than everybody else. Always. From her, I learned a lot about taking care of my customers, how to give them my attention without being obsequious, and how to monitor seventeen things going on at once. (Are my orders up? The hostess just seated a party of six at my table - need to get their water and forks to them now. This lady needs a refill on her tea. That kid just dumped his plate on the floor - get the bucket over here. How are we on rolled utensils? The coffeepot is almost empty - make a new one.) And teamwork. We all had to work together to get the job done. If anybody was slacking, it affected everybody else, because the pace was intense.

Good life lessons for a kid just out of high school.

So what does all this have to do with the LinkedIn question? Well, a career is a reflection of life in general. I had a good career in the Navy, a good career as an artist, several good careers as a student of various kinds, and a good "career" as a program/project manager in Iraq. Some careers paid better than others, but all of them were very rewarding. The reason is that it's all about people. The lessons I learned from the sausage biscuit factory and the Red Lobster stayed with me throughout all my careers. Treat your business associates, customers, and staff with respect, carry your weight and then some, and focus on the team, and you'll do well. The specific career field is almost incidental.

Monday Afternoon Musings

It's been a busy time here at the Rohde household this past week. The big news is that I suddenly have three organizations interested in hiring me. I'm filling out forms now, and next week will be flying out for an interview. All three jobs are very different, but they have one thing in common: they're all in Afghanistan. Yes, Afghanistan. Some time ago, I wrote that I seem to be qualified for only two jobs: either running multi-million-dollar projects in some war-torn country, or wearing a blue vest and saying "Welcome to Wal-Mart". Well, Wal-Mart isn't hiring, so it looks like it's Afghanistan!

For many people, learning that you're going to A'stan would be terrible news, but not for me. There's something about deployments that gets into your blood. It's working in places that most sane people don't want to go, doing things most people don't want to do, but doing a mission that needs to be done. I'm pretty good at it, too. On the flip side, the separation is a strain, but Janis and I know that we can handle it.

Any one of these opportunities will help us achieve another goal, which is to move to San Diego. Janis lived there until my transfer took us away 20 years ago, and I've been hearing about it ever since. Now that we have a young grandson, it's time to go back. Yes, it's expensive and crowded and will someday fall off into the Pacific, but too bad. We gotta go. This tour in A'stan will provide the kick to get us there. As soon as it's confirmed that I'm going, we'll put the house up for sale and start the process.

So now I have to talk with these three organizations and see which ones (a) will actually offer a job that (b) I really want to take. Three interests does not a deployment make.

Speaking of San Diego, Janis is going out there soon to see her friends and family. I get to stay home and be a single Dad to our two dogs for two weeks. If all goes well, maybe Janis will be able to start looking around for a place to live out there.

Meanwhile, here at home, we've had several waves of storms sweep through. Back in May, we had two hailstorms and some hellacious rain. Over the past week, we've had several storms with blasts of wind and more drenching rain. My neighbor had three of his four Bradford pear trees split in half a couple of days ago. I had two big branches from my dogwood break off and land halfway across the yard. Last night, the top 15' of one of my birches was blown off. I spent a couple hours today cleaning that one up. Let's hope that the storms are gone - they're no fun! The good news: my roof survived the hail, and the big trees around the house withstood all the wind.

On a lighter note, we saw a wonderful movie the other night: "The Triplets of Belleville". It's an odd French animated film, very funny, very creative, and beautifully drawn. In fact, the drawing alone is reason to see it. I could look at it frame-by-frame and be perfectly happy.

The movie trailer is on YouTube, of course (actually, the whole movie is), but I recommend that you put it on your Netflix queue and see it on a bigger screen. We loved it and you might, too!

Thoughts on the New Navy

An article in the Washington Post today caught my eye. It discussed a disturbing trend: too many Commanding Officers are being fired this year for personal misconduct. As trends go, this one is all over the board. The CO's are on ships, submarines, air squadrons, and shore sites. They're men and women. They've been fired for inappropriate relationships, hostile command climates, alcohol, raunchy movies, and more. An article in the Navy Times provides specific names and limited details.

As a former Navy Commanding Officer, I'm disturbed by these reports. They raise some serious questions. What's going on with the CO's? Is something failing in their professional development? Are they just being stupid all at once? From the information in the two articles, I can't tell.

There is no single thread running through these firings. One, heavily reported in the press, was the CO of the Enterprise. When he was the Executive Officer (XO, the #2 position on the ship) of the ship, he participated in making some raunchy and inappropriate videos. Stupid. The CO of an attack squadron was fired after being caught DUI. Stupid. The CO of an amphibious ship (female) allowed hazing and used a loaded weapon in a dangerous manner. Stupid. The CO of a submarine mishandled classified information and tried to cover it up. Stupid. The Commodore of a destroyer squadron had a relationship with another officer's wife. Stupid.

It's not just CO's. The Navy Times article lists XO's and Senior Enlisted Advisors as well. These two individuals, along with the CO, establish the climate in the command. If they screw up, it's almost as serious as a CO screwup.

The military has a long tradition of holding its leaders to higher standards. There's a reason: leadership is more important to success than technology, sheer knowledge, or anything else. In the Navy, lives depend on a senior officer's leadership on a daily basis. The sea is a very unforgiving place and when something happens, the CO and his leaders have to have the unquestioned trust and respect of the crew. Naval officers are raised with this awareness from the day they enter the service and it's pounded into them throughout their career.

Now, people are people, with all their foibles, weaknesses, and quirks, and CO's are no different. I've certainly worked with some quirky senior officers in my career and some might say I'm quirky, too. But as a CO, you have to step up to the plate and recognize that you're held to a much higher standard. These individuals, for whatever reason, messed up. Maybe it was a single bad decision, maybe it was for a pattern of behavior over a long period of time, but they didn't uphold the standard. So they were fired. For an officer, that's it: your career is over and you may as well resign. Otherwise, you'll be manning an unimportant desk buried in some unimportant job, while everybody around you knows that you didn't measure up.

On the one hand, I'm happy to see that the Navy is still holding CO's accountable for their actions, and holding them to the same high standards they always have. That's the good news. The bad news is that a lot of CO's right now aren't measuring up. Why? I don't know. But anybody who aspires to be a CO (which, in my opinion, should be every officer) should take a lesson from all these firings. Substandard performance just doesn't cut it.

Groundhog Week

It occurred to me that lately I have written very little about what I've been doing. I can sum most of my waking hours up in two words: job search. That's not a very exciting topic. I search. I find something that looks interesting. I research the company, the position, the location, whatever. I tweak the resume, write a cover letter, and submit an application. Log it into my application records. Start searching again.

Like most of the country, this past month has been unbelievably hot. We've been running 10-15 degrees above normal for several weeks now, and it feels more like August than May/June. That means I do my yard work in the morning, before it heats up, and then do the computer work in the afternoon.

Speaking of yard work, my wife has been bugging me to take the weedeater to several spots in the yard. Since our weedeater is a low-cost low-quality POS that hasn't been used since last July, that meant it needed some maintenance first. So I spent about $40 for parts and six hours in labor to rebuild the carburetor, replace the fuel lines, clean the air filter, put in a new spark plug, and make sure everything was adjusted correctly. And now, of course, it won't run at all. So got out the yard gloves and a pair of scissors and spent about 15 minutes cutting down the weeds that the weedeater was intended for.

With the hot weather come summertime afternoon storms. We've had them nearly every day for a week. One of my dogs, Indy, is scared to death of thunder.

So when the thunder and rain start, Indy's in my lap. As she is right now, as a matter of fact. Makes it hard to type on the keyboard.

The River Arts District Association in Asheville is holding its semi-annual Studio Stroll this weekend. This will be the first time in years that I haven't been participating in it, one way or another, and I'm not going to miss it at all. In fact, I'm going to enjoy it. Tomorrow, I'm going down to the District and will actually do the Stroll. Rather than being tied to my studio all weekend long, I'm going to wander to everybody else's studio and see all the wonderful work that's being done down there. So if you're in Asheville this weekend, go down to the River Arts District and see some great art. You just won't see mine this time!

Veterans Unemployment

A number of articles recently have focused on the disturbing fact that the unemployment rate for veterans is significantly higher than it is for non-veterans. I just read a piece in the Navy Times about it, but the Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times (really good), Yahoo.com, and many more have also published articles on the subject. Young veterans from the post-9/11 world have an unemployment rate in general of over 20%. In some areas of the country, though, it's over 40%. Vets who've been out in the civilian world for a while have a much lower rate, indicating that most of them were able to make the transition and build solid civilian resumes before the recession hit. Those making the transition now, though, are having an extremely hard time.

As everybody knows, the current employment situation (to use a highly technical term) sucks. Unemployment remains high and shows no sign of improvement anytime soon. A new report says that only 54,000 new jobs were created last month. This is about 150,000 less than needed to keep up with population growth, much less recover from the 8,000,000 jobs lost during the recession (thank you, Wall Street). So anybody who's in the job market faces an uphill battle.

For companies that are looking to hire, they're in the catbird seat. They often get over 100 applications for any decent position, so they can specify in great detail what kind of candidate they think they want. And so they do. Most of the job descriptions I see have a laundry list of required qualifications: highly specialized training, certification in this or that field, X number of years experience doing exactly the job that they're hiring for, and so on. Years ago, when I saw such lists of requirements, I could assume with some certainty that they already had a candidate in mind and were just going through the job announcement motions for legal or CYA reasons. Now, though, they'll probably have a number of candidates to choose from.

But are these really the characteristics they should be looking for? Not necessarily. I think that a truly successful employee is successful because of other reasons: dedication, drive, flexibility, perseverance, teamwork, leadership skills, and loyalty, to name a few. Yet these characteristics are almost never mentioned. It seems as if employers are missing the person in their search for a specialized technical widget. In my experience, technical skills can be learned relatively quickly by a reasonably-intelligent person with a reasonably-applicable background. But it's the personal characteristics that will make the new employee a success or not.

Our young veterans have those personal characteristics that civilian employers should be looking for. Just the fact that they successfully completed their service, whether for 3 or 30 years, shows that they have dedication drive, flexibility, perseverance, teamwork, leadership skills, and loyalty. They may not have the latest CISSP or PMP certification because they spent three of the past five years in Iraq or Afghanistan, getting impossible jobs done under arduous conditions.

I agree that much of the onus is on the veteran to translate his/her military experience into terms that a civilian can understand. Over the past several months, I've gotten a lot better at doing that. Still, civilian employers need to be more aware of what it is they're asking for. If all they're asking for are technical widgets, well, be careful what you ask for. If they're looking for people who can do amazing things, then look at the veterans.

I just don't want to see a bumper sticker that says: "WE PROUDLY SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. WE JUST DON'T HIRE THEM."

Thoughts on Bosnia

Good news from the Balkans: a couple of days ago, Serbian police arrested Ratko Mladic. He was the leader of Serbian paramilitary forces during the horrible Bosnian conflict of the early '90's, and the one responsible for the slaughter of 8,000 people in Srebrenica in July, 1995. Even better, the Serbian police forces put down a small protest riot today by ultra-nationalist Serbs who were demanding his release. Mladic will soon be sent to the Hague to stand trial for war crimes. This marks a milestone, a finish line of sorts, to the Bosnian war.

I was in Sarajevo in the spring of 1996 as part of the Operation Joint Endeavor peacekeeping forces. I was part of a small team providing intelligence support to the NATO commander, Admiral Leighton Smith, and a few select senior leaders. Our team had a unique ringside seat to the negotiations and maneuvering between NATO, the various nations that made up NATO forces, the Serbians, the Bosnian Muslims, the Croats, and the UN. This was soon after the ceasefire had been established. The fighting had officially stopped, but peace had definitely not broken out, and keeping things under control meant walking a tightrope.

A great many people at that time were demanding that NATO capture Mladic, along with Radovan Karadzic, the political leader of the Serbians. This pressure began to build, to the point that many, even in the NATO forces, assumed that we were getting ready to mount an operation to nab them. Frankly, it would not have been that hard. Admiral Smith, though, refused to do it. He had good reason. We had a very close call in the spring when a low-level Serbian general took a wrong turn, blundered into a NATO checkpoint, and was arrested. The Serbians were furious and came within a heartbeat of pulling out of the peace process. Somehow, they were persuaded to stay, and eventually were convinced that the general really did just take a wrong turn and that it wasn't a planned NATO operation. But this event showed just how tenuous the whole situation was. Admiral Smith knew that if we gone after Karadzic and Mladic, the peace process would have collapsed and the Balkans plunged back into civil war. His view was that we were there to establish the peace. That came first. Whatever justice was to be meted out would have to wait until it could be done without bringing ruin.

That time is now. Radovan Karadzic was arrested three years ago and is currently being held in the Hague. Now Ratko Mladic has been brought in. Just a few years ago, his arrest would have brought down the Serbian government. Now, though, it just provoked a relatively small protest with a few hundred people that was contained by Serbian police.

When Yugoslavia collapsed, it did so very quickly, and when it went violent, it did so even more quickly. It has taken 15 years to get to the point where the arrest of former Serbian leaders can be done without destroying the country. Similarly, when our government made the decision to go to war against Afghanistan and then Iraq, it did so very quickly, but the process of building the peace is still ongoing nine years later. This has always been the case: wars can come quickly, but the recovery often takes decades.

Food for thought on this Memorial Day.

"No Bad Wine" Day

Two years ago today, we lost three amazing men. Terry Barnich, Maged Hussein, and Navy Commander Duane Wolfe were killed when their vehicle hit an IED outside of Fallujah, Iraq. Terry and Maged were friends of mine. We worked together in the Iraq Transition Assistance Office (ITAO) at the US Embassy. They were, literally, our two finest, and their deaths hit all of us who knew them very hard. I wrote about them in a blog post here.

Terry had a close call once before. During one of the innumerable rocket attacks on the Green Zone and Embassy, a piece of spent shrapnel hit him on his nose. After thinking about it, he announced that life was short and that he would never drink bad wine again. And he didn't.

Memorial Day is coming up soon. It was not created as an excuse for furniture sales, it was to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice for their country. Most of us think of soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines on this date (if we think of them at all), but you should include civilians as well. A life given for our country is a life given, no matter what clothes they wear.

For me, though, Memorial Day is a day to remember those losses in the aggregate. I knew Maged and Terry personally, and saving their remembrance for Memorial Day doesn't seem right. So I've set aside May 25th, the day they were killed, as my own personal day of remembrance. And, in honor of Terry's credo, I've tagged it as National "No Bad Wine" day.

So right now, I'm sitting here with a glass of fine 2007 Cabernet. I've also got a glass of iced fresh water in honor of Maged, who was in charge of our water development projects. Two men forever in my memory. Here's to you, guys.

Disney and SEAL Team 6

I just read that the Disney company has trademarked "SEAL Team 6". That is just so disgustingly wrong. What the hell are they thinking? They have no right to that name at all. None. Basically, they're stealing the good name of the best fighting team in the whole world. Why? To make a few bucks, of course. What are they going to do, have a SEAL Team 6 ride at Disneyworld? Give the yokels a roller-coaster ride that ends with an image of bin Laden's head getting blown off? Have Mickey Mouse run around with an M16 and a kevlar helmet?

The SEALs put their lives on the line every day. Now Disney is taking their name and making money off it.

Disney is scum. 'Nuff said.

My New (Temporary) Studio

Here's my new temporary studio. Looks a lot like a garage, doesn't it? Yeah, nothing like oil drips and snow shovels to make an artist feel right at home.

I moved out of my studio at the end of April. It was a pretty big job getting everything packed up, sold, given away, thrown away, and moved into a storage unit. Then I had to get the storage unit organized so that I could actually find things. (Photo of the storage unit forthcoming). Then I had to take care of a lot of other things, so today was the first day I actually set up my easel and an unfinished painting and slopped some paint. It felt pretty good to be able to do that. Did I do any good? Not really. It takes a while to get the rhythm going. At least I was able to put the finishing touches on this painting, sign it, declare victory, and get ready to move on to the next one.

My main occupation these days is job hunting. Part of it is going well: I'm finding lots of interesting jobs. The problem is, none of them are finding me. It's a very frustrating, maddening experience. The job deck is stacked against the job hunter these days, and the old rules ("old" being anything older than 3 years) no longer apply.

One of the things that has really hit home is that resumes have to be written for the specific opening. Generic resumes don't work. The reason is that most employers are now using automated systems that scan your resume and (maybe) your cover letter for specific keywords. The keywords are different for each job and, of course, you don't know what they are. Your best guide is the job announcement itself. So you take your resume and cut/paste/reorganize it to match what the job announcement says they're looking for, using as many of their specific words as possible. That will, hopefully, get your resume past the automated system and into the hot little hands of a real person.

Another is that each halfway-decent job announcement will get dozens, or hundreds, of applications. With so many people looking for work (thank you, Wall Street), the competition is really fierce. So your resume has to out-shine not only the next guy's, but a whole boatload of others as well.

Even if the resume is top-notch, you may be cut out for really bullshit reasons. There was one really cool job where I made the first cut. The next step was to take a written test. Yes, this was a government position, no civilian company that I'm aware of requires written tests. The test could only be taken in person, in their HR shop. I suggested that they email me the test, or mail it to a contact in the Asheville city government and they could administer it, but no. Had to be there or else. So it was "else". They could afford to be dickheads because there were so many people applying.

Lots of job-hunting guides tell you to network, to meet people working in the company that you want to work for, and establish personal connections. That's fine if you're living in a major city and not planning on relocating. But I live in Asheville, which is one of the 10 worst cities for finding a job, and I'm planning on going somewhere else. Our goal is San Diego, where we have family, or possibly some other place if needed. You can't personally network from a couple thousand miles away. I'm doing what I can with emails, social networking, and phone calls, but distance is definitely an issue.

On a personal note, I find myself getting angry with TV and print advertisements. It's like they're rubbing salt into my jobless wound. Yes, I would love to buy a new Mustang, but I need a job first. All these ads are populated by sleek, well-dressed people, and the message I'm getting is "this stuff is for successful people, and you're NOT". In my head, I know that's not right, but that's the feeling I get anyway.

So I keep going. Get up, search for jobs, network, send out notes, work on an application for several hours, fire it off and forget it. Repeat. Something will break for us.

Marwencol

The Dispatch Rider

Photo by Mark Hogancamp

I just watched the film "Marwencol". I thought it was a stunning, thought-provoking, and insightful documentary. The backstory: Mark Hogancamp, a heavy drinker, was assaulted outside a bar one night by five men. They beat him so badly that he was in a coma for nine days. His face was smashed, his memory gone, his personality permanently altered, and he had to learn to walk again. Dumped from the hospital and then from therapy when Medicaid wouldn't pay anymore, Mark created his own therapy. He invented the town of Marwencol, located in Belgium in World War II. It is peopled by 1/6-scale dolls that Mark dresses, poses, and photographs, as they act out situations and stories. The photos have been exhibited in New York galleries, and caught the attention of filmmakers who created this documentary.

All the above is true and accurate. But it doesn't capture the power of this film. It is gripping on so many levels. On one, it is a story about traumatic brain injury (TBI). Mark was damaged in the same way that so many of our soldiers have been: his brain was badly battered and will never completely heal. You see him struggling with the simple task of walking, five years after the attack. You see him trying to make sense of his world and try to relate to people when he can't think the same way others do.

On another level, it is the story of a lonely individual who is trying to connect with others. He vaguely remembers being married at one time, but that is now gone. Now he wants to love and be loved, but he can't. Part of the reason is the TBI; part may be something else that the filmmakers decided not to touch upon. So Mark lives out his desires through the "people" of Marwencol.

On still another level, it is the story of art as therapy. Mark started down the road that led to Marwencol by a lucky accident, and he continued because he had to. He was dropped from Medicaid and had nothing else. Fortunately for him, Marwencol worked. Creating the town, the "people", and the stories gave him a world in which he could live. He could be a strong man, love a woman, fight evil (especially the attackers), be independent, and do the things that he couldn't do in real life.

And it's a story about art. Where does art come from? Watching Mark Hogencamp, I thought of Vincent Van Gogh, another individual with mental issues who created amazing images. The filmmakers discussed Mark's images as powerful images in their own right. There are other contemporary artists who photograph dolls, manikins, or other such stand-ins for real people, but virtually all of them do it in an ironic way. "It's a soldier! No, it's a doll (wink wink)". Mark's work has no irony in it whatsoever, something that I think is wonderful. Irony is over-rated, and I say that as somebody who has done a whole series of ironic paintings. If making art is a way of understanding your world, then Mark is a master. If you're an artist, are you willing to go the distance that he has?

And there are still other stories to the film, such as what led to the assault in the first place, who the "people" in Marwencol are, and even where the name "Marwencol" came from. If you're interested in brain injury, art as therapy, art as art, or just interested in a gripping story of somebody trying to make sense out of their life, see this movie. Put it on your Netflix queue. It's well worth watching.

Guillermo Munoz Vera

Even though I've closed my art studio, I'm still an artist, and still interested in seeing what other painters are doing. One of my monthly rituals is to go through the newest issue of Art in America magazine and flag the pages with interesting images. Then I google those artists and study their work. Sometimes there are lots of artists to research, sometimes only one or two. Lately there have been very few, which was making me discouraged, but the newest issue has several.

One of them is Guillermo Munoz Vera, who has a show at the Forum Gallery. This gallery tends toward traditionally-executed, highly representational works. Guillermo's current exhibit is an unusual one: it's made up of about 20 hyper-realistic paintings, all on the theme of European voyages of discovery in the 16th century.

The Cartographer

Oil on canvas

As expected of the Forum gallery, these paintings are exceptionally well done. Besides the unusual theme, several other details caught my eye. For one, all of these paintings were done in 2010 and 2011. Most of them are quite large. That's a hell of a lot of painting to get done in a short period of time. When I looked him up on the 'net, it appears that this is his normal pace. Even allowing for the use of projectors to assist in drawing and color selection, this guy is cranking. I can't do that. I poke along and can work on one painting for months.

For another, I'm wondering where he gets his reference materials. Many arrangements can be staged in a studio, but some of them can't. Cape Horn, for instance, is a large (59"x59") painting of a 16th-century Spanish sailing vessel that's pounding through rough seas under a stormy sky. When you look at the details of the rigging, spray, and so forth, that's not roughed in, it's photographically accurate. He had to base it on photos of a real ship, but exactly how is beyond me.

Guillermo Vera doesn't normally work on historical paintings. Do a google search for his images and you'll see that he's done photo-realistic work of people, interiors, landscapes, Cuban cars, and more. Here's one that resonated with me:

Maia with Kalashnikov AK-47

Oil on canvas

Jolting, isn't it? I'd love to see this work in person.

Just as I don't do abstracts, I don't do photo-realistic works. I like to make representational paintings that are still about painting, where the visible brush strokes are an important part of the finished piece. But I appreciate well-done abstract and photo-realistic paintings. Munoz's are extremely well done. I just wish I could get to New York to see the show.

Osama bin Laden

By now, the whole world knows that Osama bin Laden was killed by US Navy SEALs last night in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. Information is still coming out and we'll probably never know many of the true details of the operation. Still, this is a time to congratulate the unnamed (and un-nameable) intelligence analysts who worked for ten years to piece together the details that led to finding bin Laden. We must also congratulate the unnamed (and un-nameable) Special Operations forces that planned and executed the attack. The dedication, professionalism, and tenacity of these individuals is what led to yesterday's successes. Raise a toast in their honor: they deserve it.

The disclosure of bin Laden's location raises a ton of questions about Pakistan, however. For years, Pakistani leaders, including Pervez Musharraf (former military strongman and President) and Asif Ali Zardari (current President) have said that bin Laden was not in Pakistan; and if he was, he was probably in Waziristan, the lawless area along the border with Afghanistan. Last night proved them wrong. Bin Laden was "hiding" in a huge house in a highly populated area only 40 miles from Islamabad, the capital of Pakistan. His compound was within a short walking distance of the headquarters of a regiment of the Pakistani army. The house was a fortress: eight times the size of anything else in the area, surrounded by tall walls topped with barbed wire. Does this sound like he was particularly worried about the Pakistani government finding him? It's like finding Adolf Hitler "hiding" in a fortress in Frederick, Maryland.

No, I think this proves the Pakistani lie. Their intelligence agency, the ISI, helped establish the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The ISI has always been a bit of a rogue element, outside the control of the President and even, to a certain extent, the military. At the same time that we've been providing Pakistan with aid and assistance over the years, we've been leaning on them to rein in the ISI. They've been giving us lip service, saying one thing while doing the opposite. While telling the world that they were "searching" for bin Laden, they were instead practically treating him as a guest of honor. Now they have world-class egg on their faces, as well they should have. Their lie is exposed.

Apparently, not all Pakistanis are in league with the ISI. President Obama last night mentioned that it was Pakistani information that led to the discovery of the compound. The wording, however, indicates to me that it was individual Pakistanis who passed the information, not official government agencies who are supposed to be working with us.

So what do we do with Pakistan now? Cut all aid and support, tell them to go screw themselves? No. We need them and they need us. Most importantly, we need to maintain a good handle on what's going on in that country. To be blunt, I think the only reason we're still involved in Afghanistan is because Pakistan, right next door, is a nuclear power that's teetering on the brink of falling to the Islamists and Taliban/Al Qaeda supporters. If they did, that would be a disaster of world-wide proportions. Not only would international terrorists have a safe home base, but they'd have access to nuclear bombs and materials. A nuclear war with India would only be a matter of time.

As the saying goes, "keep your friends close and your enemies closer". Pakistan is a "frenemy", so we need to keep them in a headlock while trying to encourage the growth of a less-corrupt and more democratic government. A very difficult task.

I've been very interested in exactly how this operation went down. Information is pretty sparse, as it really should be. Apparently, two helicopters with the SEAL team left Afghanistan and flew to Abbottabad for the attack. One helo had a mechanical failure during the operation (possibly due to a sudden ingestion of many bullets from AK47's?) and was destroyed by the team. After the attack was over, the team left with bin Laden's body on the remaining helo and flew back to its base in Afghanistan. The body was apparently photographed, something was taken to provide DNA evidence, and then it was loaded into a US Navy plane and flown to the USS Carl Vinson in the North Arabian Sea. Then it was buried according to "Islamic tradition". The burial was probably filmed for propaganda and historical purposes, although nobody has said that yet.

So: how did the helos get from Afghanistan to Abbottabad? They're not stealthy. Did they disguise themselves as a routine supply flight until arriving at Abbottabad? Did they fly low, under the radar? That's a hard trick to do for any length of time, as it requires skimming the earth and flying through valleys. Very dangerous and risky. The Pakistanis weren't told of the attack until it was over, so the Pakistani air traffic controllers certainly weren't in on the game. And how about the fixed-wing flight from Afghanistan to the carrier? By then, everybody knew about the attack.

Going forward, it's going to be interesting to see what the Pakistanis do. They've been caught out before the whole world in a lie. Their people are already furious about the ongoing drone strikes. They can't cut us off because they can't afford to lose our aid and support. Their leaders will probably make a lot of noise about territorial integrity or some such nonsense, but I doubt they'll do anything really rash. So it will be interesting.

As for the remaining Al Qaeda and related terrorists, it's pretty clear that there will be some reprisal attacks. I would expect to see some suicide bombings very soon - almost certainly in Afghanistan, possibly Pakistan, and possibly a few other (unexpected) places. Suicide bombings are easy for them to arrange on short notice. We will probably see much more complicated attacks being planned for the longer term (several months). Al Qaeda used to have a very long-term view, in the decades, but now it's much shorter. They've been beaten back over the past few years. I think they have to quickly prove they're still relevant or else they'll lose their support, so they're probably thinking in terms of months now, rather than decades.

One target down. More must follow. The momentum seems to be on our side now, though.

Out of the Studio

After eight years, I no longer have a studio. I finished moving out yesterday. The walls no longer have my works on them, my supplies and equipment are gone, and all that's left belongs to my studio partner. I feel kinda sad - the place was my professional home for a long time and now it belongs to somebody else.

But it's time to go on to the next stage of life, whatever that is. I've always found that, when the decision to make a change is made (whether it's a change of duty station, change of job, whatever), then I don't mope about what is past. I get excited about whatever's coming down the pike. That's the situation now. I decided three months ago to find some other full-time employment. Then, in order to focus more on the job search and be better prepared for any offer, I decided three weeks ago to close down the studio. I think that was a good decision. It removed an ongoing distraction ("gotta go down to the studio and paint") as well as a Sword of Damocles ("what am I gonna do with the studio if I get a job offer and have to be somewhere in a week?"). Of course, it took quite a bit longer to close it up than I thought: two weeks instead of the anticipated four or five days.

But in the end, it worked out. I sold off a lot of stuff: furniture and equipment mostly. I packed up the reasonably-good artworks and destroyed a lot of substandard ones. Some artist friends and Goodwill got some things gratis. When I removed my workbench and painting rack, I found some really hideous bug sanctuaries. (Hey, the bench and rack were there for eight years, what did you expect?). Now all the "keeper" items are in a 10x10 storage unit, ready to be loaded into a moving van for transportation wherever we go next.

And I'm pretty sure we're going to go somewhere. Asheville is a wonderful place to live, but it has been recognized for having one of the 10 worst job markets in the country. There are lots of examples: a PhD who's working as a federal GS-5 clerk, a young lady with a masters in biology working as a figure model, a large number of people with bachelor's degrees working as waiters and waitresses, former owners of construction companies working at Lowe's. And those are the lucky ones.

As noted in previous posts, I think something will pop for me before too long. It probably will not be here. So tomorrow I double-down on the job search. It won't be a half-time effort anymore.

And I'm pretty excited about it. Whatever it brings.

Family Tree

I've been working on my family tree off and on for many years now. Recently, I had a breakthrough on a couple of the branches and discovered two ancestors who fought in the Civil War. Their stories are quite amazing.

One was a great-great-grandfather (my mother's father's father's father), James Price. He enlisted in the 58th Alabama Infantry in February, 1862. The unit was sent to Mobile to man defensive positions for a year. In 1863 the 58th moved to Tullahoma and fought in several small engagements. In September, the men participated in the battle of Chickamauga, where they distinguished themselves by capturing several pieces of Federal artillery the first day and breaking the Federal lines the second. However, the 58th paid a heavy price, losing over half its men killed and wounded during the battle. After recuperating and consolidating, they fought in the battle of Missionary Ridge on November 25th. Union forces defeated the Confederates and ended the siege of Chattanooga. The 58th suffered heavily: of 400 men in the fight, over 250 were killed, wounded, or captured.

My great-great-grandfather and his unit wintered over in Dalton, Georgia. In May, 1864, they fought at Resaca, GA, losing a third of their men in the first few minutes. They also fought at New Hope, Kennesa, and around Atlanta. In the fall they moved north into Tennessee and were in engagements in Columbia, Franklin (twice) and Nashville.

I believe that my great-great-grandfather was wounded and discharged at some point, probably in one of the 1864 battles, as he was married and had a child born in 1865. I haven't found any record of his discharge yet but will continue looking.

The other ancestor was also a great-great-grandfather: my mother's father's mother's father. Lorenzo Whitaker enlisted in the 2nd Mississippi in the spring of 1862. His older brother William had enlisted in the unit the previous year and fought in the Battle of First Manassas (aka, "Battle of Bull Run"). Lorenzo joined the 2nd Mississippi at Yorktown, where they were gearing up for another combat season. Shortly after he arrived, however, his brother was discharged due to an unspecified disability. Lorenzo and the 2nd Mississippi participated in the battles of Seven Pines (near Richmond in May, 1862), Gaines Mill, Second Manassas, and in September, at Antietam. There, they routed Federal forces out of the Cornfield, while sustaining losses of about half their men. The unit then retired to Goldsborough, NC, where they wintered over.

In the spring of 1864, they began combat operations again. They participated in the (unsuccessful) siege of Suffolk, Virginia, and then moved north as part of Lee's campaign to take the fight into Northern territory. The 2nd Mississippi was in the vanguard of forces moving toward Gettysburg when the fighting started on July 1. They inflicted heavy losses on Federal troops, broke their lines, and chased them toward Seminary Ridge. The chase became chaotic, however, and a large group was suddenly outflanked and surprised at the Railroad Cut, which put the Southern forces in a hole and unable to fire effectively. Many were quickly wounded and killed and the Cut became a killing ground. The Major in nominal charge of the Southern forces surrendered. My great-great-grandfather was one of those who was wounded and captured.

As it turns out, these were the lucky ones. Two days later, what was left of the 2nd Mississippi took part in Pickett's Charge, where they were decimated. Out of all the 2nd Mississippi's men who started across the field, only one was not wounded or killed.

Lorenzo and the other captives spent the rest of the war at Fort Delaware, a prison camp on an island off Delaware City. This camp was a gulag, on par with any concentration camp. At one time, it held up to 13,000 prisoners, many from Gettysburg. Water was putrified and food scarce. Rats were a delicacy. Diseases such as scurvy, smallpox, malnutrition, measles, dysentery, and diarrhea were widespread. All had lice. One prisoner wrote that he shrank from 140 pounds to 80 pounds during his time there. Approximately 2700 Confederate prisoners died during captivity; 2436 are buried on the island. Lorenzo survived captivity, however, and went on to raise a family on farms in northern Mississippi.

Reading history books about the great events of our past is all well and good, but it usually seems remote. Now, though, I have a personal interest in places like Chickamauga and Gettysburg. My ancestors were there. Those events shaped them, they shaped their children, and their children, eventually, shaped me.

Richard Johnson - Combat Artist

I just found out about the "Kandahar Journal", an artist's blog by Richard Johnson. He's with Canadian forces in Afghanistan right now. Richard is an excellent artist, a fine draftsman who really captures the spirit of his subjects. And he has an eye for the telling detail. Go visit the blog, bookmark it, and visit often. This guy is worth following.

Packing Up

My studio is a mess, isn't it? I'm busy moving out. As mentioned in a previous post, I've put in for some really interesting jobs over the past couple of months, and based on the meetings in Washington two weeks ago, something will probably come through before long. I have no idea how long "before long" will be: it could be this afternoon, it could be in six weeks, who knows? But something will. And when it does, Janis and I are going to have to react very quickly. So it's better to close the studio down now, while there's plenty of time (?), rather than madly rushing around throwing everything into moving boxes or the dumpster.

I'm going to have a studio/yard sale this weekend, on Friday and Saturday, to sell off things that are too good to throw away but no longer of use to me. The past few days have been spent in digging through shelves, sorting, packing, and pitching things into the "sale" pile or the trash. I'm continually amazed at finding stuff that I forget was here, or at the amount of artworks that once were keepers. I've destroyed a lot of drawings and watercolors today that really aren't keepers. It's very cathartic, too. The thought process kinda goes like this: "oh, look at this one, it's not too bad .... well, yeah, but what are you gonna do with it? Would it ever sell? Would you ever frame it for your own house? No?" Then RRRRRIIIIIIIPPPP and it's torn in half and thrown into the paper trash bag. I haven't even started on the canvases yet. Gotta dig out my box cutter first.

I've advertised the studio/yard sale on the local artist listserv and the vultures are already circling. A few items have already been picked off: the tent is gone, some fold-up chairs, and a couple of folding easels. A couple of ladies came in today thinking that the studio will be vacated, but no, my studio partner Christine is staying, so the two ladies were very disappointed. I've even got some artworks at ridiculously marked-down giveaway prices with no takers so far. It's a sad state of affairs when a cheap frame is worth more than the labor of love that's inside it, but that's the way it goes. If you're an artist, get used to it!

Somebody asked if I was quitting my artwork. The answer is NO. I'm a painter, even if I have to be gainfully employed in some other field. For the short term, my garage will be my studio. Once we get settled wherever it is we move to (IF we move), then I'll have a studio again. So I'll continue to make artworks. Just not full-time, and not in this studio, anymore.

So now it's back to work. Two big rolls of bubble wrap are looking at me, as well as bunch of paintings that need to be packed up.

Figure Drawing

Mac

Charcoal and Conte crayon on toned paper, 22"x16"

Changing Directions

The trip to Baltimore and Washington this past week was quite eventful. Well, actually, the traveling wasn't eventful, but Wednesday was. I stayed with my aunt and cousin just north of Baltimore. It was great to see them again - they're wonderful people, very supportive of me and my wild hairs. And this trip fell into the "wild hair" category. After traveling on Monday, I spent Tuesday doing my final research and preparations. Then Wednesday morning dawned early. (Okay, it "dawned" at its regular time, which I'm never awake for, so dawn to me is ungodly early.)

My cousin dropped me off at the Camden Yard train station and I caught the MARC train to Union Station in DC. This one hit all the stops, tootling thru the old beat-up industrial areas in south Baltimore. I was looking out the window at all these old factory buildings, thinking what great studio spaces they'd make. When we got into the more rural and residential areas, it was pretty boring until we rolled into Washington. Then it was off the train and down to the Metro station.

For my first stop, I went into downtown Washington. I've applied for a really cool job with a national nonprofit, and one of their main offices is in downtown DC, so I wanted to go by and talk with them in more depth. I'd sent them an email and made two phone calls to set up an appointment, all without any response, so I took the bull by the horns and just walked into the office. To be frank, I wasn't expecting much - to judge by their earlier non-responses, they probably weren't very interested in talking to me.

I was wrong. I spent well over an hour talking with a guy who was very interested, both in me and in talking about his organization. Our conversation ranged over a wide area: the organization's mission, what they're looking for, what they see for their future, what I cold do for them, and far, far more. It was very encouraging. I came away from the meeting even more pumped about the organization, what I could do with them, and about my chances of actually getting onboard. I spent today revising my resume and cover letter to better reflect that understanding. Keep your fingers crossed. This is a really cool opportunity.

From there, I went to the career fair. This was a big event - there were about 80 companies who were (supposedly) looking for new hires. I had identified three that would probably be good to work with, three more that had potential, and five more that at least deserved a look. None of them are as good as the nonprofit, but a guy's got to have a backup plan in place, doesn't he? So I talked to all six of the top companies. Some were better than I'd thought, others not, but that's why you talk with 'em.

What was really interesting to me was the responses I was getting to my background and resume. One guy looked over my resume, gave me his own email address at work, and told me to send him the information about which jobs I was interested in so he could contact the specific decision-makers. Another one told me how to game his company's online job application system to increase the odds of my resume actually getting to somebody important. Apparently, I have a pretty good resume - which is reassuring after getting turned down for so many other lower-level jobs to date with terms like "not qualified" and "not in the most qualified group".

I met up with an old friend from Baghdad there. He and I worked for the same guy at the Corps of Engineers and we're both job-hunting. And, as it turned out (much to our amusement), we have applied to many of the same jobs. So we double-teamed one company's recruiter, offering to arm-wrestle for that particular position. It was cool to see him again and I hope he gets something soon, even if it's one that I applied for, too, as long as I can have the non-profit position. (No, he isn't interested in that group, so I'm safe from competition from him there).

When I wasn't talking with recruiters, I had a great time people-watching. This was a military-oriented career fair, so the place was loaded with Type-A personalities who were on a mission. Don't get in their way or you'll get run over. The newly separated or soon-to-be-separated guys seemed to be wearing the same blue blazers with gray or tan slacks that they got from Joseph A. Banks. There were quite a few of us slightly older guys, and a few who were well past retirement age. I even saw one guy with a bad gray toupee. Never seen one of those before. A gray one, I mean.

Eventually, I got to the lower end of my list of prospective companies and realized that I had absolutely no interest in talking with the recruiter in front of me. Time to leave. Since I was in Washington, I went straight to the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. Got my creative batteries recharged on Winslow Homer, Edward Hopper, John Singer Sargent, and more. Then it was time to grab the MARC train back to Baltimore.

My trip home was uneventful, except that I left the power supply for my laptop up at my aunt's place. She's mailing it back to me. Yesterday I had to take care of stuff that popped up while I was gone, namely the "Check Engine" light on the car (why does this only come on when I'm gone?), cutting the grass, and taking care of a few other nitnoid things.

I've made the decision to close down my studio at the end of the month. After my Washington trip, I came to believe that it may not be long before I have a decent job offer in hand. When I do, I'm going to have to move somewhere pretty quickly. Asheville is probably not in my future for very much longer. So it's best for me to pack up my studio now and be ready to go when something happens.

So that's how things stand this Saturday night. It's been an eventful week. My head is in a much different place now than it was at this time seven days ago. Wonder what the next seven days will bring?

Nice Day for a Flight

So I'm sitting here at the Asheville airport. The flight to Charlotte leaves in an hour, and I'm killing time in the brand-new coffee bar/lounge. This is new since the last time I was here and it's quite nice. I've got a great view out over the parking ramp and runway, over to some kind of construction project on the far side. It's a beautiful day today, not a cloud in the sky and perfect temperature (70 degrees).

I'm on my way to Baltimore today. I'll stay with my aunt and cousin for a few nights. The purpose of the trip is to go to a military-oriented career fair on Wednesday. Yes, the job search is still ongoing. No nibbles yet. Some days I feel like it's only going to be a very short time before I'm gainfully employed again, then the next day I'll feel like I'm never going to find a job, ever. Then I'm convinced again that it'll only be a short time before the perfect job calls.

So what am I looking for? Well, it's really a combination of two things. One, I need to feel like I'm making a positive difference. Just adding to some corporation's bottom line does not excite me. So non-profits and some government agencies are high on my list. Second, our end goal is to move to San Diego. Janis is from there and we have family and friends there, particularly a little grandson. So the perfect job for me is a people-related non-profit in San Diego.

That's a pretty small market. I may have already hit everything there is to hit.

So there are a variety of Option B's. These involve various combinations of expanding the geographic area to southern California in general, expanding the the pool of target organizations to contractors who are doing interesting things, or doing a temporary detour to someplace else.

Which is why I'm heading to this career fair. I've been to this one once before and it was quite impressive - it took over the whole floor of the DC Convention Center. There are maybe 70-80 companies that will attend. I've researched them and have about 15 that I want to talk with; of those, maybe four or five are in my top tier. Almost all are defense contractors of some sort; some have locations in southern California, others are doing really interesting things somewhere else. I've got resumes out the wazoo in three different formats, a hundred or so business cards, and a couple of contacts. Let's rock 'n' roll!

As I typed those last words, my airplane landed and is now taxiing to the gate. Time to close this up and head on over. Wish me luck!

Life Drawing in the Studio

We had our life drawing session last night. Our model was a young lady who has worked with our group for several years now. Two of my drawings turned out fairly well.

Krista #16

Charcoal and Conte crayon on toned paper, 19"x12"

Krista #15

Charcoal and Conte crayon on toned paper, 19"x12"

Spring!

Spring has sprung

The grass has riz

I wonder where

The flowers is.

That nonsensical poem came from my first art teacher many many years ago. It still pops into my mind, unbidden, every spring when I see the plants coming back to life. Which is happening now and it's wonderful to see. My grass has been turning green for the past couple of weeks and might even need mowing in another week or so. Our daffodils popped open a week ago. Yesterday, the forsythia started turning yellow. Today, I saw the first sprigs of green on the bushes lining our driveway. The maples are just starting to bud. The tulip poplars and birch trees haven't woken up yet, and the oaks are still sound asleep. They're always the last to come to life and the last to drop their leaves, anyway.

I've got a bit of spring fever today. I wanted to get out into the yard, but pushed myself to go down to the studio instead. There's work to be done. I need to get the portrait completed - it's been on my easel for a long time now. Can't move on to the next project while this one is still front and center. Unlike some other artists, I don't really work on multiple paintings at once. I'm a linear, one-at-a-time kinda guy.

On Wednesday, we had a long pose during our weekly life drawing session. Here's what I came up with. Not the greatest, but it was a fun study, a bit challenging.

Danielle

Oil on panel, 20"x16"

So now it's time to get the big portrait back up on the easel and start working again. Enjoy your spring day!

Serendipity Happens

I'm a bit frustrated. It feels like I've just been spinning my wheels in slow motion this past week with little or nothing to show for it. In last week's post, I mentioned that I was going to the doctor for a case of painful tennis elbow. She put me on an anti-inflammatory called Meloxicam. I lasted four days on it before the side effects became too much. It made me tired and grumpy, upset everything from the stomach on down, and made me feel like I had a case of the flu. Yuck. As soon as I quit taking it, though, my body perked back up. The elbow is better - not completely well, but now it's just a minor annoyance. I'll take that and run with it.

The doctor also said to give my arm a rest, meaning no painting. So I spent several days on the computer instead, doing my job search. To me, this is a very frustrating experience.

To start with, there is the Great Silence. This is the standard response to a well-written submission that is carefully tailored to the opening. It's what I hear most of the time, particularly from federal agencies, even when I could clearly do the job in my sleep. Drives me nuts. The next most common response is No. At least it's a decision and I can accept that.

All is not bleak. A couple of companies have been vocally interested and had me provide more information. And as I go through the process, I'm learning more about what to say, how to say it, when to say it, how to write it up, and so on. It's iterative, and I'm getting better at it with each interation.

Last week I participated in a virtual career fair. It was essentially a military-focused career fair that was conducted online. Very interesting. There were almost 60 companies and agencies participating. I researched almost all of them, and of that total, there were 2 1/2 that I was interested in. As it turned out, none of them really had anything I wanted to do, but another company popped up out of nowhere and the more I looked, the better it looked. The recruiter was very helpful, interested in me, and wanted more information. Lesson learned: prepare yourself beforehand for these events, research all the companies, and when something unexpected comes up (as it will), go with it.

Actually, this happened to me before. Back in 2007, I attended a career fair in Washington, with the specific intention of talking with the State Department about going to work for them in Iraq. As it turned out, the people at the booth were completely ignorant of the program I was interested in. But while heading back to my car, I stopped in a drug store and spotted a freebie newspaper focused on federal and contractor jobs. It had a section that pointed me directly to the program that I went to the fair to learn about. Which led to me working in Iraq for a year and a half. So the fair itself, for which I'd prepared, was a bust, but the trip was a success due to the unexpected.

And it goes back to something else I learned back in art school: Serendipity Happens.

Yesterday, with my body back to normal, I returned to the studio and picked up a brush again for the first time in a week. Man, did it feel good to be painting again! I worked on the large portrait, putting in a completely revised background. Serendipity happened here, too: everything came together and a beautiful sky appeared behind the young lady with a rose. Now the bottom section needs to be put together. It'll come.

Life Drawing

Claire

Charcoal and Conte crayon on toned paper

Last night we had our regular Wednesday night life drawing session. Our model, Claire, is a dancer and always takes wonderfully graceful poses. My first couple of drawings were junk, but then things started clicking and this was the last one of the evening. I think it came out pretty well.

Because of the preparations for the show at Mars Hill College and with job-hunting, I haven't been able to put a drop of paint on the portrait in over a week. I'm going through withdrawals now! Must .... paint .... must .... paint .....

Over the last couple of weeks, I've developed a bad case of tennis elbow in my right arm. Okay, so it actually started a year ago from working out in the gym in Iraq. I was able to pretty much ignore it for a long time ... "it'll go away ..." - NOT! And now it has gotten to the point where my arm locks up when I'm working at the easel and constantly burns. So I've got an appointment this afternoon to have it looked at. I can hear Dr. Heiselmann now: "So, how long has this been going on?" Me: "Umm ... a year ..." Okay, so I'm a bit hard-headed and slow!

Exhibit at Mars Hill College

Mars Hill College is exhibiting a collection of my paintings and drawings through the end of the month. The show is titled "After the Conflict". It includes a few large paintings that were done a few years ago, recent oil paintings, and some drawings and watercolors that were done in Iraq.

Here are (left to right) Lament, You Don't Understand, and Warrior. These paintings were part of my "Meditation on War" series.

I built a support for all of the Portraits from Iraq, turning the collection of eight separate panels into one artwork.

These are six drawings from the "Baghdad Sketchbook", plus the small painting Tent City.

The show runs through the end of the month. It's in Weizenblatt Gallery, in the Moore Fine Art Building. Hours are 9-4 Monday thru Friday, closed weekends.

Life Drawing

We're still doing the life drawing sessions in my studio on Wednesday evenings. Last night we had a new male model who was quite interesting to draw. This drawing took about 20 minutes and was done in charcoal and white Conte crayon on toned paper. Last week, we had a young lady in for a portrait session. It was fun, but my work (in oil on linen board) was crap, so I wiped it out. That's the way it goes: sometimes the drawings or paintings flow easily, other times they're a struggle, and sometimes you can't get it right no matter what you do.

Painting Progress

I've been working on a large portrait lately. It's a life-size image of a young woman on a 60"x40" canvas. It's a classic, elegant type of painting. Development has been a bit slow, probably because my attention has been divided between the studio and job-hunting. Today, though, it came a long way in a short time.

I had the model come to the studio a couple of weeks ago. We tried a number of poses and quickly focused on a standing 3/4 stance. I did a bunch of charcoal sketches to work out some thoughts, then did a very rough color sketch that noted color temperatures. Then I took a lot of reference photos - whole figure, face, hands, and other details.

Reference photos are a necessary evil for me. I like working from life, but a painting like this one takes a long time to develop and model fees would bankrupt me long before it was done. So I console myself with the thought that Norman Rockwell and others use photos, too.

I got the painting blocked in in one day, and then worked on the face over two more sessions. By then, the figure had an interesting expression on her face - when doing my "stream of consciousness" scribbling in my journal, the word that popped up was "saucy". I liked the expression. The pose, though, was a different matter. It looked like a prom picture and did not go with the expression at all. So I had the model return to the studio and we came up with a much better solution. The body position is the same, but the arms are different, much livelier. I reworked the block-in and was happier with the changes. Over the next week, I made a little progress here and there. The painting was just crawling along.

Today, though, something happened. I started working on the dress, putting the dark layer down and wiping out the highlights with a rag. It turned out pretty well, so I decided to add the rose. It worked out well, too. Then I did another little little thing, and another, and everything kept turning out pretty well. I was on a roll! That doesn't happen all that often, so when it does, you gotta ride that pony!

So after making slow progress over a couple of weeks, we had major progress today. It still has a long way to go, but here's how it looks right now.

Here's the full painting leaning against my easel. The color looks flat and not well modeled in this shot, probably because of the fluorescent lighting, but there's more to it than appears here.

Here's a detail of the face. This shows a bit more color and modeling, doesn't it?

So what remains to be done? Well, lots. The whole background is going to change. I'm going to give the dress five or six days to dry, then put a glaze of cool color over it with cool highlights. The face needs more work, as well as the hands and arms. In other words, pretty much everything. But now I feel that I have a good framework to build on.

Change of Direction

The reason that my blog posts have fallen off a bit lately is that I'm job-hunting. Yes, I'm looking for a full-time position that does something worthwhile. And, as usual, there are many reasons for this move at this time.

One reason is that I have little confidence in economic recovery anytime soon. Despite some positive signs, and despite pundits saying that things are looking up, I see a lot of doom and gloom for at least the next five years, probably more. Back in October, I wrote a blog post about the federal budget. It noted that the current federal spending accounts for over 25% of the US gross domestic product (GDP), but only takes in about 15% of GDP. Both levels are significantly different from their historical levels of about 20%. In other words, we're spending at levels not seen since WWII, and taxing at unsustainably low levels. To get the budget back in balance, Congress is going to have to cut spending by about $630B and raise revenues by about $540B. So far, both parties are doing a lot of posturing and doing little or nothing substantive, but the substance is going to come one way or another. The ongoing battle in Wisconsin is just the opening skirmish in what is going to be a long, difficult, and ugly period. These government cutbacks are going to come at a time when private industry is sitting on massive amounts of cash and doing little or nothing to actually build a solid economic recovery. Not a good combination.

The budget problem is going to hit retirement pay hard. Many private companies have managed to duck their pension obligations and local and state governments are looking to do the same. I think this will probably hit the federal government as well. Military retirees (like me) have already had our retirements frozen at current levels. I can see the day when Congress tries to actually reduce it or take it away.

And Social Security is tied up in the mess. Economists, Social Security administrators, and anybody who can add one and one and get two have been warning for years that the structure of Social Security is unsustainable and must be fixed. But in the recent lame duck session of Congress, instead of fixing it, they made the problem worse by cutting payroll taxes and putting Social Security into red ink permanently. I fear for Social Security over the long run.

Meanwhile, many economists and business leaders have been predicting a rise in inflation. Ben Stein (whom I often disagree with but always respect) made the case pretty succinctly in a piece on 60 Minutes yesterday morning, anticipating high inflation with a stagnant economy. I remember well the previous "stagflation" period of the 70's. It was pretty awful, and unfortunately it looks like we're heading there again.

So I think our economy is going to remain in the toilet for years. As an artist, that's pretty devastating. Artists are the economic "canary in a coal mine": we're the first to get hit in an economic downturn and the last to recover. (In fact, the art world had not recovered from the relatively mild recession of the early 2000's when the economy tanked in '08). Since returning from Iraq in May of last year, I've seen little sign of hope. From visitors to my studio, to galleries, to discussions with other artists, to my proactive ventures into public art, there's no real indication that the art world is on the rebound.

As a result, I've decided that the best course of action for me is to find full-time employment. For the past two months, I've spent about half my time on researching opportunities, talking to friends and potential employers, putting in applications, and revising my resume on a daily basis. I can't say it's fun. Actually, it's a bit dispiriting, particularly when I get turned down for a job that I could do in my sleep. But a job search is a numbers game. You gotta keep at it and explore every opportunity. Sooner or later, something will come through.

I do NOT consider this a failure as an artist. My art is quite good: my paintings, drawings, and original prints are well done and have important things to say. But if the market is not there, that's something beyond my control. Some people have told me that I should do this or that type of artwork, something that would appeal to a wide population and sell. Unfortunately, I seem to be genetically incapable of doing that. My mind puts up a solid concrete wall when it comes to creating decorative items for popular consumption. Give me something with some meat to it and I'm on a roll; give me a mission of creating fluff and I fall on my face. Steve Jobs said something memorable when he was recruiting John Sculley away from Pepsi to run Apple: "Do you want to sell sugar water for the rest of your life, or do you want to come with me and change the world?". I can't do sugar water. My contribution to changing the world is minuscule, but I'd rather do that than make art just to sell.

So now I'm looking for other ways to contribute. I've got a lot of irons in a lot of fires right now and more coming. Many more. Meanwhile, I'll continue to work in the studio. There's an exhibit coming up next month that needs to be prepared, a new painting in progress, and some more workshops and classes to be taught. And a few of the "irons in the fire" are art projects.

But if you're looking for somebody to help you change the world, give me a call.

Life Drawing Session

This is a small, 16"x12" oil sketch done last night during our life drawing session. I decided to challenge myself and use oil paint instead of charcoal and paper. This, and the other three, were done in 20 minutes or so. I wiped out all the others, but this one was interesting. The model's pose had a lot of power to it, which is what I tried to capture.

Today, I'm working on a large (60"x40") portrait of a young woman. It is, frankly, "commission bait", an example of what I can do. Today I worked up the drawing and transferred it to the toned canvas. Tomorrow, the paint starts flowing.